N Scale Saginaw Sub for Trainz

JIb228

Multiplayer Guru
So I was toying around with the idea of building my home N scale layout in Trainz. And so I did. But you may be asking why am I posting about it here? Well the answer is I made a multiplayer session for it. And it all should be available to download soon.

So I want to give an over view of how things should play out in the session. It is built for 2 to 4 people and can last from 2 to 24 hours. It dose utilize CMTM3 and as a bug in the DLS right now will only work in T:ANE. It was built for TRS12 but one of the assets in TRS12 was updated, beyond my control, to T:ANE and thus TRS12 see's it as out of date.

Next Session: Monday October 5th at 5PM PST, 8PM EST.

There are 5 jobs available:

Plymouth Yard Crew: Works inbound and outbound trains in Plymouth yard. Build's train D739 the Wixom Turn.

Flint Yard Crew: Works inbound and outbound trains in Flint yard. Build's train D737 the Holly Local.

Train D739 the Wixom Turn: Work the Ford Auto Plant, and possibly Korex only. Consists of Box cars, Auto Racks and possibly cars for Korex. D739 should never pass Holly for any reason.

Train D737 the Holly Local: Works as far as Novi. Delivers cars to Delta Tube, Korex, Rite Aid, Novi Lumber and possibly AC Delco. At no time must D737 enter Plymouth yard.

Staging Yard: This yard takes in trains and "makes" new ones by assigning new records to cars.


Basic Operations:

At the start of the session a player should tag all the cars on the ECS tracks. Then move any cars for on route industries to the Toledo track. As well as any cars tagged for Toledo. Any cars tagged for Saginaw should be placed on the Saginaw Tracks. Next all cars for Saginaw and Toledo should be marked as delivered. This will instantly load the cars and give them their next destination. Cars on the Toledo track should be put on a "north" bound train and sent to Plymouth to drop off cars for Ford Auto and ether Ramp track. Then terminate in Flint yard. Cars on the Saginaw Track should be sent "south" bound to Flint yard.

At this point the Plymouth yard should build train D739 while Flint build's D737.

D737 should be blocked as such when leaving Flint: Locomotive - Korex - Delta Tube - Rite Aid - Novi Lumber
D739 can be blocked in any order.

After the locals return, both a south and north bound train should be built. With the South bound for Toledo leaving Flint yard, picking up cars in Plymouth and then returning to the Toledo tracks. There the staging operator can then redeliver cars to the staging tracks, or ECS tracks and start over again.

Special Tracks notices:

Lincoln yard, AKA Wixom yard has no yard crew. It is an industry support yard. It is intended to be used by the crew of D739 to hold and store cars as they work the auto plant.

GTW Connection. Near AC Delco there is a loop track back into staging. At this time that track is unused. (On my model railroad it will be linked to a stub ended track representing the GTW Flint Sub's connection and for storing an interchange train.)

CSX Detroit Sub. These tracks are between the backdrop and the main coming out of Plymouth. They are currently unused. At a later date I will add CMTM records to add cars to them. And so these tracks should be left unused.

Whole route is to be treated as a point to point operation. Flint<->Holly<->Wixom<->Novi<->Plymouth. Yes you can go in loops all day long. But for proper operations it must be assumed that staging is divided. This means if you are in Flint and want to go to Plymouth, you must go though Holly and Wixom first.

Here is a map of the layout, with industries in red, yards in yellow, and towns in blue.
IQpjjtT.jpg

(Not the best as the quality took a dump on me when I saved it.)

Over-View.jpg


I was playing around with the route a little this morning in T:ANE to see how things look.
 
Last edited:
Doesn't creating a route in a model RR scale, mean that only the ruler is different from full scale ?

Can you fit more track on a single baseboard, using a model RR scale ?
 
I think changing the scale only changes the unites of measure on the ruler. For this I set it to N Scale. I then took measurements of my layout as I was building it and applied them to Trainz.
 
There appears to be one asset I thought was built into T:ANE and on the DLS, but I seam I was wrong. So I have to do a update to the route to fix this issue.
 
This is a nice layout and I don't care what scale it is.

Thanks, as I said, this is a 1:1 representation of my model railroad.




In other news, the route and session should now be up to download. But I found an issue with the data soup for CMTM that I need to fix. Somehow the records form another route and session got placed in the asset for this CMTM asset. Fixing it ASAP.
 
Ok, remade the CMTM data soup. I have no idea how it got screwed up when I uploaded it as it was working beforehand. But somehow the CMTM assets config was reset to an older data soup that I was playing with. But the new data soup should be up in the next few days. I'll be updating the OP with some more train information, operation tips, and when I will be hosting sessions.
 
Not finding a session either. But this route is really cool.. Thanks for sharing! And I want to come over and see you basement!

Bob
 
Not finding a session either. But this route is really cool.. Thanks for sharing! And I want to come over and see you basement!

Bob

Two things wrong with that. 1 the layout was built in a garage. 2 I since have moved out and haven't had time nor money to move the layout to my new place.

How ever, if you follow this link here it will take you to the Facebook page I have for the layout. There you can see photos and videos of the layout. (Scroll down to the posts after May 3ed to see progress.) And once I get it back up and running, I have done web op-sessions. Where people can log in to a web page, view a web cam and run trains. I wont get into the details of how it works right now. But at one point I had people from Pennsylvania, Florida, Texas, and Washington State all driving my model trains in Nevada. All I did was trow switches and uncouple cars.

What is the KUID of the CMTM session?

Harold
This seems to be the / a session for this route:
kuid:344263:100483, TOPSIG N Scale


That it is. I had the route and session put up as invisible first, to test something. But until N Scale CMTMSystem3MP 1.4D
<KUID2:344263:100128:13> shows up on the DLS it wont work. You can drive train's but you wont have any switch list's and industries wont work. None of the CMTM will work. But the asset should be available soon. I just approved it, now N3V just has to stick in on the DLS.
 
Ok, so the new CMTMS records are up and working for the most part. I forgot to make ECS records for hopper cars, and one of the start up records seams to be off slightly for Delta Tube. But it works and can be used to play now. I'll up date the OP with the next time I will host a session, as well as additional operation instructions.
 
Hosting a session now, as stated in the first post that I have been updating. I have most of the cars sorted in the Staging yard and I will be running them to the yards soon.
 
Bump. Going to try and host a session all day while at work. So feel free to jump in and sort car's, build trains, and work the line.
 
A friend of mine and I tried running this route in MP. Had all sorts of problems.

Locos disappearing when dropping cars at spurs.
Trains getting stuck on loops and not being able to move again.

Couldn't get anything done.

Rico
 
A friend of mine and I tried running this route in MP. Had all sorts of problems.

Locos disappearing when dropping cars at spurs.
Trains getting stuck on loops and not being able to move again.

Couldn't get anything done.

Rico


Seams like a problem with multiplayer and not the route, as this is the fisrt I have heard of this issue. But I'll take a look anyways.
 
Seams like a problem with multiplayer and not the route, as this is the fisrt I have heard of this issue. But I'll take a look anyways.

I think so too, but thank you for checking it out.

We ran another session last night, and the cars did not disappear.

The mainline locs on the loop curves, are another thing though. Its seems this has happened with many other layouts.
Those locs are too long for some of the curves. The radius of the turns are too tight for them, they get stuck between the
Staging yard and the Flint yard, and in the Novi curves as well.

I'm currently looking at cloning your session and replacing the mainlain locs with shorter locs that don't have six wheel trucks.

I also may super detail the route including the Plymouth yard, back stretch and staging areas.
You know, grass splines, shrubs, fences, debris, more buildings etc etc.

I really like the layout btw, it's fun ! The CMTM was a bit of a puzzle since I haven't played with it since V1. But once I got the hang of it it was very enjoyable.

One other thing, reading your posts on the MP threads, are you still running sessions on the last Friday of each month?


Rico
 
Last edited:
I think so too, but thank you for checking it out.

We ran another session last night, and the cars did not disappear.

The mainline locs on the loop curves, are another thing though. Its seems this has happened with many other layouts.
Those locs are too long for some of the curves. The radius of the turns are too tight for them, they get stuck between the
Staging yard and the Flint yard, and in the Novi curves as well.

I'm currently looking at cloning your session and replacing the mainlain locs with shorter locs that don't have six wheel trucks.

I also may super detail the route including the Plymouth yard, back stretch and staging areas.
You know, grass splines, shrubs, fences, debris, more buildings etc etc.

I really like the layout btw, it's fun ! The CMTM was a bit of a puzzle since I haven't played with it since V1. But once I got the hang of it it was very enjoyable.

One other thing, reading your posts on the MP threads, are you still running sessions on the last Friday of each month?


Rico

I should have put smaller locomotives in to begin with, but all I had downloaded at the time where what I used and stuff from JR. And I had to stick with the DLS.

The problem with cloning the session would be that cmtm3 only works in MP. You could copy the data soup to CMTMS4 though and it should still work.

I haven't ran an MP session in a while, due to a lack of interest on a lot of ends. However I would be down for joining you guys sometime. I honestly haven't ran this layout with anyone else. Outside of running the real layout.
 
So I ran into and found a fix for getting a locomotive stuck. Assuming you mean that running it up to full power and it wont move at all. The trick I did, and got it moving again, was to switch between DCC and cab mode.
 
@jIb228:

Thanks for the tip. That could be the answer (temporarily at least). To be honest, the sessions would be more enjoyable if we had a slew of SW1500's or maybe another type of mainline loco like GP30? The 30's on the dls are older, but do work in TANE. I tested out some of cyncysoutherns, they work well and have plent of power. They of course are a but dated texture/normal map wise, but look ok :)

I'm not too familiar with other US switcher locos, other than the SW 1500, any ideas?

Are you on Steam?

Rico
 
Back
Top